


The Hour Before Vespers

by ryme_intrinseca



Category: Cadfael Chronicles - Ellis Peters
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-11
Updated: 2020-11-11
Packaged: 2021-03-07 01:01:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,076
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26268409
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ryme_intrinseca/pseuds/ryme_intrinseca
Summary: The hour before Vespers is a time of contemplation and confession.
Relationships: Hugh Beringar/Brother Cadfael
Comments: 5
Kudos: 12
Collections: Fic In A Box





	The Hour Before Vespers

**Author's Note:**

  * For [DoreyG](https://archiveofourown.org/users/DoreyG/gifts).



It was the hour before Vespers, and Cadfael was in his workshop. The raw heat of the sun had been tempered as the day drew out towards its ending, and only a pleasant somnolent warmth remained. The familiar refuge was rich with scents, some from the rustling herbs hung in bunches from the low rafters, others from fruit peeled and diced, ready to be dried or steeped in liquor for the warding-off of ills come winter.

Lazy tendrils of fragrance lifted from the decoction set above a flame. Cadfael stirred the pot with steady patience, alert to any change within the mixture but allowing himself to take measure of other needful tasks. Brother Edmund had requested more lozenges for soothing the throat—a summer chill had swept through the younger oblates and their playmates, the town boys who came to the abbey for their schooling—and there was a poultice to be made up for Master Godwin, who lived along Wyle Cop.

Beyond these requirements, he could think of a host of other small jobs to do, both in the workshop and about the garden. Cadfael smiled. Even Adam had worked in Paradise, and was not this garden a small slice of the paradise Cadfael had sought, when he had hung up his Crusader’s sword and taken the cowl?

The mixture began to thicken and bubble. He slid the pot onto a stand of fired clay and extinguished the flame, then stood for a while enjoying the quiet. Not the silence, for there was never silence amongst nature. The workshop seemed to stretch like a contented cat, its purr the humming of the bees about the last purple-red blooms of the comfrey and the vivid heads of the lavender. A breeze soughed through the orchard, and from beyond the wicket fence Cadfael fancied he could hear the babble of the Meole Brace, running silver-bright to join the great loop of the Severn wending around Shrewsbury.

He also heard the pad of footsteps. No monastic, this one, but Cadfael knew him by his gait long before the shadow fell across his door.

“Good afternoon, Hugh.”

Hugh Beringar, the sheriff of the shire, propped a shoulder against the doorjamb and looked in curiously at the ordered shelves of flasks and ointments, lotions and boxes. “Do I disturb you?”

“Not at all,” Cadfael assured him. “I was woolgathering; the evening seems made for idle fancies. But what can I do for you?” His thoughts flew to Aline and to his godson, Giles. The boy, though young, was an imp, forever discovering the best way to make mischief. “Is all well at home?”

“Yes,” Hugh said slowly, straightening from his slouch but still affecting diffidence, “and no.”

Thoughtful now, Cadfael wiped down the pestle and mortar he’d used and hung the cloth on a hook by the door. He was accustomed to seeing Hugh’s dear face alight with good humour; this uncertainty sat ill. Careful not to betray too much concern, Cadfael ushered his friend towards the bench placed against the south wall. A pocket of warmth surrounded by a glorious display of late summer roses, the sight could not fail to lift the spirits.

“You are but lately returned from Brigge,” Cadfael recalled. “You were away some dozen days or more, I think.” He had numbered each day of Hugh’s absence, and had felt them as keenly as an old hound misses running to the hunt. “Did you find aught to trouble you?”

“The reports I had were true,” Hugh said, taking a seat but not quite settling. “Deserters from Maud’s army, fleeing north for succour from their kin before taking further flight across the border. By all accounts, those that caused the trouble had no family in these parts to care for them, but had come with companions who hail from this shire.”

“War makes a tyrant of any man,” Cadfael said with a sigh. “Never more so than a war between close kin. But asking King Stephen and Empress Maud to come to terms is like expecting the heart and the head to agree. I trust the trouble caused by the deserters was not so great?”

“Petty theft, for the main, although two more serious offences of robbery and battery.” Hugh rubbed a hand over his jaw and sat forward, still too agitated to be at ease. “I had one fellow in irons, when the shout went up that the other had been spotted on the ridge. We followed, my men and I, but our prey knew his way about that landscape and gave us the slip. When we returned to the town, the door of the prison stood wide. We had been tricked.”

“Desperate men do desperate things.”

Hugh nodded. “That they do. Well, we went on the hunt and pursued them a little way south and a long way west. One we caught, abandoned by his companions when his mount threw a shoe, and he the one who’d committed the battery, so all was not lost. Of the rest of them, we followed their headlong path as far as the border. Venturing further afield, a shepherd who’d seen them come crashing through told me they were headed for Arvester.”

“Arwystli,” Cadfael corrected gently, his tongue light around the Welsh name. “The lords of Gwynedd and Powys are like dogs with a bone with that land, for all that the farming is poor. The access it affords from the Marches to the coast is more valuable than the yield from any crop. Well, well; I wonder whose service your troublemakers will take, when they reach their destination?” He gave Hugh a twinkling smile. “It could be they never bother your shire again.”

“I pray it is so. But,” Hugh was still awkward, twitching like the tail on a young lamb, “that’s not why I’m here.” He looked at Cadfael, dark eyes piercing and intent, then slid his gaze away.

Cadfael stirred, his senses alert. He had never seen his friend exhibit such behaviour, not even when Hugh faced the murderer Adam Courcelle in single combat. He took firm grip on Hugh’s knee in reassurance. “Be at peace, Hugh, and tell me what ails you, and we shall see together what can be done about it.”

Hugh uttered a bark of laughter and sat back, sprawling into a corner of the bench. To any onlooker it would appear that he was completely at his ease, but beneath Cadfael’s hand, the muscle remained tense. “It is a private matter.” 

“Well,” Cadfael said comfortably, “and this is a private place, with none to hear but ourselves.”

“So private,” Hugh continued as if Cadfael had kept silent, “I took myself for a remedy to Mother Colley in Brigge.”

Not a flicker of reaction disturbed Cadfael’s countenance. “Her reputation is known even here.”

“Aye, as a witch.” Face aflame, Hugh fidgeted himself into a posture that spoke of his discomfiture. “She lives in the old hermit’s cave on the hill, and the way is scattered with votives. It’s said even the priests go to her to cure their ailments! But,” he held out his hands and shrugged, “I couldn’t entrust so delicate a matter to a stranger, and so…”

“So here you are.” Curiosity was biting now, like fish to a well-baited hook.

“Yes.” Hugh pulled at a loose thread on his sleeve. His colour was high, a wash of red on those sharp Norman features. He fumbled some more, as foolish as a moonstruck lad, then burst out: “Can you make a love potion?”

Cadfael judged it best to let silence absorb the question first. For himself, he exhibited only mild surprise. “Can I ask why you need such a thing?” Hugh gave him such a hang-dog look, Cadfael almost laughed. “You cannot tell me it is for Aline!”

That won him a grin, both bashful and charming for all that it was fleeting. “She is annoyed with me for being away so long.”

It seemed unlike her to be so petty, but Cadfael knew women kept their own counsel. He sat pondering. “You want a love potion. To do what, exactly?”

Hugh blushed, out of countenance. “Not to _make_ her love me…”

“Good,” Cadfael said briskly, “because it cannot be done. Regardless of what certain wisewomen say, there is no tonic thus far created that can move a person to love. It is a gift freely given, or not given at all.” Seeing how his friend squirmed, he was moved to sympathy. “If you have angered her, an apology works far better—and is quicker, too!”

“She’s not angry,” Hugh informed the ground. Even his ears were red. “She’s… disappointed.”

A longer silence followed this admission. Though it seemed incredible to think of it in one so young and virile, Cadfael thought he understood. “Ah. I see.”

Puffs of dust rose from the shuffling of Hugh’s booted feet. “I would not speak of it to any but a confessor, but,” he darted an embarrassed look, shoulders sinking and lifting, “you have no small skill with herbs, and I have heard there is a way to—to…”

“Stimulate the senses. Yes.” Compassion flowed forth. Cadfael knew what it was like to want something but be unable to lay hands on it. It was a common enough complaint, after all. And if his dear young friend needed some assistance, well…

He stood, shaking out the rusty black folds of his habit. The air was still, punctuated by the scratching of a grasshopper and the bumbling of the bees. The roses looked at their best, great blowsy blooms triumphant in scent and colour.

“Rest easy,” he said gently. “I can prepare you a syrup to restore your vitality.”

Hugh peeped up at him from beneath a tousling of black hair. “When?”

The bell rang for Vespers, startling the pigeons from the roof of the abbey church. They wheeled, undersides flashing white, and came back to their roost while the last sonorous note still hung in the air.

“I must attend the Office,” Cadfael said. “But be assured, I will give the matter my full attention. Come here tomorrow, and the cure will be ready.”

~~~

Cadfael had leave to excuse himself from Nones, and went into the town to deliver the poultice and advice to Master Godwin. On his return to the abbey enclosure, Cadfael went directly to his workshop and checked on the syrup he had begun to mix last night before Compline.

A simple combination of honey and wine, the latter taken from a twelve-year vintage, as fine as any that was sold at St Peter’s Fair imported through the Low Countries, he had added extractions of milk oat and St John’s wort, to calm the mind.

He stirred it with a practiced hand, humming to himself the chant he had heard from the church. Cadfael knew his voice followed him in shape and temperament, round and brawny, passionate and rollicking. Ah well, there were none to complain if he gave voice here in the comfort and privacy of his own shed!

To the syrup he now dropped distillations of borage and lemon balm, to uplift and revive the soul. Sage, too, its earthy pungency waking the senses and rousing memory…

Cadfael replaced the dropper and went to the bunch of silver-green sage drying from the rafters. He took a handful of the leaves, as thin and delicate as the leaves of pastry he’d eaten in those far-away lands while on Crusade, and crushing them, inhaled the scent from his palm.

He remembered Hugh’s awkwardness yesterday, those flashing dark eyes and the taut pride that kept his friend from speaking freely. He had been thrown off the track, diverted like a hound lured from the trail by an easier scent, but now he had it. Now he had it, and if he was wrong, then so be it. Friendship could survive all manner of tests, if it was strong enough, and he felt certain of Hugh’s regard. Perhaps even more so now than before.

Smiling, Cadfael resumed his task with a gladdened heart. A few drops of distilled self-heal, for it was a cheerful herb that never did ill, and then he finished with essence of roses, brewed this season when the blooms were at their ripest. He tasted the syrup and found it sweet. From a box tucked high on a shelf in the shadows at the back of the workshop, he took a pinch of pepper. Costly, yes, but when there was such a prize at stake…

He tasted the mixture again, rolled it on his tongue and closed his eyes, the better to enjoy the flooding of his senses. The pepper gave it bite and heat, love’s goad. It was ready.

~~~

Hugh arrived in the hour before Vespers, his footsteps rapid and eager as he rounded the turn in the box hedge. Cadfael broke off from digging over a patch in the garden and leaned on his shovel, the better to appreciate his friend’s appearance.

With his usual energy, Hugh had already dispensed with his fine woollen bliaut and approached in his shirtsleeves. Dark eyes measured what needed to be done, and those sleeves were rolled up to the elbow. As though he were a labourer in the fields rather than a Norman lord, Hugh took up a spare shovel and went digging, plunging the gleaming edge of the implement into rich, loamy earth.

They went at it together. It was hard work, but satisfying, the kind that brings pleasurable ache to the body and a sense of a job well done. There was no need for words between them, for both knew, in their own way, what they were about.

Cadfael slowed his pace to glance at his friend. Hugh had unlaced his shirt at the neck, and his chest shone with the gleam of sweat. The contrast of bleached linen against nut-brown skin was as striking as the flash of teeth in Hugh’s irrepressible grin. Black hair tumbled, curling into wet licks over forehead and cheeks.

The sight roused an old memory, of a dancing-boy lithe and limber and lovely at a certain tavern in Laodicea. He had been sweet, but how much sweeter it would be with a dear friend! Cadfael shook himself free of the recollection with reluctance.

Hugh looked at him with a slow smile. “What were you gathering in that mind of yours, my friend? Certainly not wool, if I am any judge.”

Cadfael smiled back, unabashed. “A pleasant memory from my ill-spent youth.”

Hugh’s smile became a grin, inviting reminiscence. “From your crusading days? You must have cut a fine swathe amongst the hearts and bodies of Antioch!”

“I have no complaints,” Cadfael said mildly. “But lay down that shovel, and come with me to the workshop, and you shall have no complaints, either.”

He carried his own shovel with him and brushed past Hugh, senses attuned to the smell of clean limbs and honest sweat. As he passed by, he thought he heard Hugh murmur “If only!”, but at that moment, a pair of turtle doves began their sleepy cooing from the top of the pear tree, and he might have heard wrong.

The gardening implements safely stowed away, Hugh followed Cadfael into the warm shadows and earthy scents of the workshop. After the brightness of the late afternoon, it took a moment for their eyes to adjust, and instinctively they stood close together, though both were at ease within that familiar space.

“Here, as you requested.” Cadfael pressed a little stoppered jar into Hugh’s hands.

His friend hesitated. “I take it like this? Or drop it into some liquid?”

“It should be sweet enough on your tongue as is,” Cadfael told him, “but if you find the taste not to your liking, pour a quantity into your wine and mix well.”

The jar opened with a pop. Hugh peered inside, agitated the contents, then sniffed. He gave a low murmur of appreciation. “Can I ask what’s in it, or is the recipe secret?”

“What, do you take me for a witch?”

Cadfael’s peaceable countenance provoked a merry laugh. Humour and deep affection gleamed in Hugh’s eyes. “It is well known that the Welsh have close communion with the spirits of Nature.”

“Communion, aye, and more besides,” Cadfael said, thinking of blessed St Winifred, that lovely laughing girl. The saint had an eye for beautiful young men, and was not Cadfael of the same mind and the same kin?

“Then I shall not ask, but let the results speak for themselves.” Boldly Hugh drank down a mouthful, and finding it to his liking, supped a little more.

They stood in a silence heavy but expectant, Hugh’s eyes glinting and his lips curving.

“You drank this yourself, you said.”

“To check the savour, so I might adjust for taste.”

“And did you?” Hugh’s colour seemed heightened and his breaths faster as he came closer. “Adjust for taste, I mean.”

Cadfael smiled easily up at the young man. “I did.”

Hugh stared, then laughed. “You know my mind before even I do.”

“The advantage of age and experience.” Welcoming the proximity, Cadfael traced the back of his fingers down a crumpled linen sleeve to the warm, dirt-smudged forearm.

A shiver took Hugh. Voice low and quick, he said, “You know my heart before I dare give tongue to its wishes.” He rubbed the back of his neck, loosening his shirt yet further. His skin glistened, a droplet of sweat rolling down. “You and Aline both. For I love you both, and have permission from her to explore this—aye, her fond urging, too!—and while I did not know your heart, I thought perhaps to lead you to it by way of this potion…”

“What was it I said yesterday? Desperate men do desperate things.” Cadfael’s smile was gentle with encouragement. “It is only the young who conceive of plans that meander back and forth, hoping to hit a moving target.” He closed a brawny hand around Hugh’s wrist and drew him in. “It is older and wiser heads who know the best path to success is one that is direct and pure.”

Hugh’s smile blazed amongst the shadows. “Pure? I hope not!”

Their laughter rang out, but was soon muffled. When they paused to take breath, Cadfael made sure to lock the workshop door.

He did not attend Vespers that day.


End file.
